Emanuel Nobel — industrialist with roots in the Russian Empire
Emanuel Nobel was born in Saint Petersburg in 1859, the eldest son of Ludvig Nobel, and took Russian citizenship. He was educated in Sweden and Russia and entered the family businesses young. When his father died at Cannes in 1888 he took over Branobel, then among the largest oil companies in the world, while his brother Carl ran the Saint Petersburg machine works.
He led the company for nearly three decades, through the period when Russian oil output briefly exceeded that of the United States and through the intense competition with the Rothschild interests and Standard Oil in the Caspian. He also settled his uncle Alfred's estate: it was Emanuel who agreed, against his own financial interest, that Alfred's Branobel holdings should be liquidated to fund the Nobel Prize endowment rather than contested by the family.
The company's Russian assets were nationalised after the revolution. Emanuel left Russia and settled in Sweden. In 1920 he sold a large part of the family's already-nationalised Branobel holdings to Standard Oil, which was betting that the new government would not last and wanted a claim in place if it did not.
He died in Stockholm in 1932. Branobel itself was formally wound up in Stockholm only in 1969 — half a century after the assets it was founded on had ceased to be the family's.
"Fled Russia after 1917; died in Stockholm"
Migration storyTracing the roots — Saint Petersburg (Russia)
The company was formally liquidated in Stockholm only in 1969, half a century after the assets themselves had ceased to be the family's.
Born in Saint Petersburg, he took over Branobel on his father's death in 1888 and led it until the Bolshevik nationalisation. He escaped Russia after the revolution and later sold a large share of the family's already-confiscated Branobel holdings to Standard Oil, which was betting the new regime would not last.
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Saint Petersburg (Russia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.